Apologies for the posting gap! Tremendous thanks to those of you reading, favoriting, alerting, and reviewing - you really make my day! And extra-special thanks to Oleander's One for her betaing skills. And now, the morning after Fenris's abrupt departure from Kirkwall ...
When Evelyn reached across the bed and felt the other side cold and empty, a sick feeling of foreboding filled her. Foolish, she told herself, blinking blearily as she sat up. He must have awakened earlier than she had and gotten up to check on Bianca.
But as her eyes focused, they fell on the bedcurtain. Last night, that curtain was held back by a red velvet tie; this morning it hung loose, just as the other one had for all these years. And she knew, even before she saw the note on his pillow.
He must have known it wouldn't matter what he wrote, because the note said only, "I am sorry. You and Bianca are safer without me." It didn't surprise Evelyn that there were no expressions of love. He had never been comfortable writing such things down, and he would have felt that he no longer deserved to say them. Over twenty years of their lives spent together left Evelyn in little doubt as to his thoughts.
Crumpling up the note, she flung it across the room, watching it bounce across the carpet. She wanted to be angry with him, to ask herself why he had done this—but instead it was herself she was angry with. How could she not have seen this coming? As soon as she had been wounded back in Rivain, she should have known this would be his response. How could she have allowed herself to be so distracted as to miss this decision?
Evelyn drew her knees up, resting her forehead on them. She was so tired. Too tired to fight any more. Years of running and hiding, years of makeshift houses and distrusting the neighbors and watching Bianca grow up with no friends and no home and no stability, just like she had, and without even a brother and sister to be close to. And then to come home, to finally be here where they had begun, where their greatest triumphs had occurred, with friends who they could trust with more than their lives ... She should have known it would end in sorrow. Carver killed on the way to Kirkwall; Bethany lost to the Circle; her mother murdered by a madman that Evelyn hadn't taken seriously enough. It should have been clear to her from the beginning that Kirkwall would take its price from her again. Nothing here was ever free.
A keening moan rose from her and she rocked back and forth on the bed, unable to wrest her thoughts away from the darkness that filled her. And for the first time in decades, there was no Fenris at her side, his strong arms and reassuring voice reminding her that she wasn't alone.
She fought back the tears; she hated to cry, always had. It so rarely helped anything. Instead she tried to think. Go to the docks, find out if he had taken a boat. Go to the gates, find out if he had left through them. Why would he? Of course he wouldn't. Her head pounded, her limbs felt leaden. She lacked the strength or the will to get up.
The door opened, and Evelyn's heart pounded. He had reconsidered! But when she raised her eyes they met Bianca's green ones, so like his. As she held out a piece of vellum, Bianca's lips were trembling. "Mama ..."
Bianca awoke from a warm, hazy dream in which someone had just bent to kiss her ... but she couldn't remember who the someone had been! She lay there trying to recall, which gave way to picturing Benoit and Kethali and Freddy, too, kissing her, and wondering what it would feel like if they did. They had been so attentive in their different ways, and Bianca was enjoying the attention a great deal. She hadn't seen much of her parents in the last couple of days, which was a strange and heady feeling. Is this how normal girls felt, girls who hadn't grown up on the run with only their parents for company? If so, she liked it.
At last, she got out of bed, considering what to do today. She'd been invited on a picnic with Aveline's four sons and Kethali had asked her if she wanted to accompany him on some errands he was running for Varric in Hightown. She was torn—Kethali's nearness made her stomach flutter, but she'd spent much of the previous day with him, and didn't want to give him any ideas that she wasn't ready for him to have. But the picnic was sure to be boisterous, and she was still a little shy around the Hendyr boys.
A piece of vellum tucked under her crossbow caught her eye. Who could that be from? Was it a love note from one of the boys? Her heart beat faster as she picked up the paper ... and it leaped into her throat as she read the first few words: "Bianca—by the time you read this, I will be gone." The handwriting was all too familiar; she knew it as well as she knew her own. Her father had taught her to write, and her handwriting looked much like his.
She tried to focus on the words. What did he mean, he would be gone? Her hands trembled as she first skimmed the page, and then read it over again more carefully. He spoke of the danger she and her mother were in while he remained at their sides; of how much he cared for both of them and how devastated he would be if anything happened to them because of him; and how she needed to be strong for her mother. Strong? For Hawke? When Uncle Varric and Aunt Aveline were around? Her mother would lean on them, or wrest her own strength from deep inside herself. She was hardly likely to need Bianca—not the way both of them needed Bianca's father.
Tears trembled on Bianca's eyelashes. How could he have left like that, so secretly? What would she do without him? They'd been a pair as long as she could remember. His warm green eyes, his small chuckles, his patience and understanding ...
She rushed out of the room, not even bothering to knock on her parents' door. It couldn't be true. He must be there! Holding out the vellum, she said, "Mama ..." But any further words froze on her lips when she saw her mother huddled in the middle of the bed, her knees drawn up to her chest, her blue eyes unfocused and glistening with unshed tears. Hawke didn't turn to look at Bianca, and fear gripped Bianca's heart. She was even less prepared to see her confident and in charge mother like this than she was for her father to have left. "Mama!"
Now the blue eyes looked up at her, blinking. A tear spilled down over her mother's cheek, and she didn't move to impatiently wipe it away as she usually did.
Bianca swallowed hard. "He's—really gone?"
Hawke didn't answer.
"What are we going to do?"
Slowly, Hawke shook her head. A sob was wrenched from her throat, and then another, and then a paroxysm of sorrow such as Bianca had never seen her mother express before took her.
Bianca ran across the room, the vellum fluttering forgotten to the floor, and put her arms around Hawke's shoulders. Her own tears welled up and flowed down her face, and they wept together.
Varric leaned back in his brocaded chair, closing his eyes, letting the folded vellum dangle in his fingers. He had to give it to Broody—the elf had made it a good long time before he ran out on Hawke again. But run out he had, as Varric had always thought he would. Once a runner, always a runner.
He sighed heavily, lifting the vellum again and rereading it.
You care for her more than anyone in the world besides myself. There is no one else I trust to look after them, and so I leave them in your charge. I ask only one thing: do not allow Hawke to come looking for me. I have faith in your ability to prevaricate and obfuscate and deflect suspicion.
Gladly, Varric thought. To keep the best friend he'd ever had in Kirkwall, he would gladly lie through his teeth until he ran out of breath. Whether that would make any difference remained to be seen. The Hawke Varric used to know would have followed Fenris to the ends of Thedas and beyond to find him and bring him back, no matter what got in her way ... but would this Hawke? He had seen the brittleness in her, the sudden uncertainty when her place in Kirkwall turned out not to be what she had expected. And with the Princess to protect, would she dare to launch an expedition into who-knew-where?
He had to admit that the possibility existed that this might well break Hawke, once and for all. She had stood strong in the face of blow after blow, but she'd always had the elf to turn to; from the start, he had been the strong arm she leaned on, the only arm she felt was strong enough to support her. Without him, could she bear up under the loss? Varric wished he knew. He shifted restlessly in the chair, wanting to go to her ... but he couldn't let on that he knew the elf had fled. Instinctively, he knew that it would be much harder to lie to her if she knew he had heard from Broody before he left. There was nothing for it but to sit here and wait, his heart breaking for his best friend, wanting nothing more than to be at her side comforting her, and cursing the renewed cowardice of the only man she had ever loved.
Ten days later:
As the boat docked, Fenris wondered what it would feel like to step on Imperium soil again. When he had left here, it was as Danarius's pet. A lifetime ago.
The sailor who had accompanied him made a show of pushing him down the gangplank. "Get moving, slave!" he shouted in heavily Kirkwall-accented Arcanum. Fenris was grateful for the man's help maintaining his subterfuge; alone he would have been easy pickings for the ship's crew to capture him and gain the reward on his head. With the sailor, he had been able to maintain privacy and safety. Now he could approach the magister on his own terms.
He inquired for directions from the first shopkeeper they passed. Previously, his view of Minrathous had been over Danarius's shoulder, three steps behind and two to the side, precisely. It hadn't allowed him much familiarity with the layout of the city.
Fenris followed the hastily sketched map, finally arriving at an imposing house on a shady side street. He turned to look at the sailor. "Thank you for your service." Holding out a pouch, he added, "I believe this is the price we agreed on."
"Always a pleasure doin' business with you."
"Now, you recall what we spoke of?"
"Yeh, yeh, you went over it often enough. Don't tell no one where you've gone."
"Pretend you do not even remember me," Fenris urged. "It is best that way."
"Your coin buys a lot of hush."
"Thank you." Fenris hesitated, looking at the sailor, until the other man got the message. Touching his dirty cap, he turned away.
Why it had been necessary to send the other man away before entering, Fenris wasn't certain, but he knew he needed a moment to collect himself, a private moment, before he could face what he was about to do.
At last, he rang the door, keeping his hood well pulled up over his face and his arms and hands hidden in the cloak.
"Yes?" The finely uniformed slave looked curiously at the hooded figure in front of him. "We do not give alms here, I'm afraid."
"I need to see the magister."
"Without an appointment? I'm sorry, that's not possible."
Now Fenris threw back his hood, watching the slave's eyes widen. "I believe it is. If you will announce me, I am certain I need no appointment."
"Why, yes. Yes, of course." The slave was practically stammering in his haste to get Fenris inside the house. They hurried down a long corridor with dark paintings on the wall, and knocked at a black-painted wood door.
Fenris couldn't help starting when the voice spoke from inside.
"What is it? I am very busy!"
"You will want to see this," the slave said, his voice quavering.
"Then bring it in, and be prepared for a flogging if you have wasted my time."
Once the door was opened Fenris pushed the slave aside, dropping the cloak in the doorway and meeting those familiar green eyes for the first time in twenty years. "Hello, Varania."
